A Lancaster University academic is helping to highlight 'hidden' legal rights that could prove critical to protecting nature around the world.
Conservation-Litigation.org, a global network of scientists, conservationists, lawyers, economists and artists, is launching four new analyses of the exiting legal rights for the natural world in Liberia, Thailand, Cameroon and Indonesia.
They focus on laws that can hold those who harm nature legally responsible for remedying that harm. This could have profound implications for how corporations and offenders are made accountable for their actions.
They say that although the legal rights exist on paper, they remain largely unknown to the people who could be using them to protect nature. The new reports will help citizens, government agencies and conservationists understand the laws that are already in place to protect the natural environment.
Dr Jacob Phelps, a Senior Lecturer in Conservation Governance in the Lancaster Environment Centre, is Founder and Co-director of Conservation-Litigation.org.
He said: "Around the world, nature and people already have considerable existing legal rights - but many of these are 'hidden' and often not put into practice. This is a huge missed opportunity.
"There is an urgent need to cut through the legal jargon to help people understand the legal opportunities to better protect nature.
"Only if people know and understand their rights can they use courts to access justice for themselves and for nature."
